For My Only Love
by androidilenya
Summary: "What if the one you love is already promised to another?" Indis and unrequited love - but not with someone you might expect.


**Rúsekáno (Russo) is an OC. Þellillë (Þ is pronounced th) is a diminutive nickname for a little sister, according to almare (who was very kind about my random question and also very helpful and if I've screwed up in the application of her suggestion then it is only my fault!).**

**Originally posted on July 20th - the international day of femslash, in case you were wondering.**

* * *

When the messenger arrived bearing the gilded invitation, Indis set aside the spear haft she had been carving (a begetting day present for her brother, the blade already made) with a sudden, heavy feeling in her stomach. It was not that this missive was unexpected - quite the opposite. She had been waiting for it for a long time, not with anticipation, but with something like dread.

She dismissed the boy with a word and a kind smile, hoping this served to hide her inner turmoil. It was only once he had closed the door softly behind him and she could hear his footsteps receding down the hall that she slit the ornate seal with one fingernail, noting the crest of the High King in the red wax with a pang. The scroll - of course it would be a scroll, it was just like Finwë such an elaborate and dramatic way of sending messages when a simple _envelope_ would have sufficed - was heavy paper of the finest quality, the writing itself the finest script in ink of red and gold, the starburst of his heraldic device splashed across the top.

The first few lines were nothing out of the ordinary - standard invitational speech, full of phrases like _request the pleasure of your presence_ and _sincerely hope you will be able to attend_. She skipped down to the middle, where the ornamentation on the letters was so thick it would have been hard to make out the names if she had not known exactly what they were.

_...the marriage of High King Finwë and Míriel Þerinde, on the twelfth day of this month, at the waning of Telperion._

She wet her lips with her tongue and reread the names, burning them into her mind, then closing her eyes and watching the afterimage of those letters on the back of her eyelids. _Finwë and Míriel.  
_

The last time she had seen those names written together on such fine paper had been nearly a year ago, when everyone in Tirion had been summoned to the event that customarily preceded this - a celebration of the betrothal. It had been an occasion of great import, as the High King of the Noldor hardly got betrothed every day, and as the niece of one of Finwë's closest friends (not to mention another King), Indis had been expected to go.

Indis had enjoyed herself immensely, spinning from laughter to dance to song with the sweet taste of summer wine on her tongue, golden and shining. She had seen the way her red silk dress, sewn with seed pearls from the Telerin beaches, had drawn admiring gazes, and had known that for once she had made a correct wardrobe choice - usually a slight struggle, since despite what others might have thought, her brother had more of a sense for clothing than she did and was often forced to correct her choice of attire.

She had paused between dances beneath a tree, leaning back against the bark to catch her breath and watching the light of Laurelin play off of the fluttering leaves above. The play of light and shadow lulled her into such a trance that the voice from behind came as quite a shock.

"Are you enjoying yourself, Lady Indis?"

"Yes!" She spun, and met a pair of piercing dark eyes. "I am enjoying myself-" The words were cut off by something she couldn't quite put a name to, and she swallowed, suddenly aware of the prickle of heat that was spreading across her face, the slow pool of something heavy and warm in her stomach. "Excuse me!" She darted off into the bushes, ignoring the concerned questions from behind.

Later, she had watched as the couple made their way across the dancing area, Finwë gazing down into the eyes of the much shorter Míriel, an expression of utter devotion on his face, one that was mirrored on hers. His betrothed rested her head against his chest as they swayed, matching robes swirling about them, and Indis had reflected bitterly that whatever small success she had had regarding her own dress, these two far outshone her, and no doubt with far less effort on their part.

But there had been something unrelated to Finwë and Míriel's wardrobe success (because that was such a trivial concern, and it only crossed her mind now because it was a _safe_ thing to think about), something that made Indis' insides twist - maybe it was only the way they moved so perfectly together, as though they were one person, one body already.

_He is a perfect match for her, and she for him._

She had wondered why this thought hurt her so much.

"Indis?"

She glanced up, jerked from her thoughts and into the present, automatically stuffing the scroll between her seat cushions as though caught reading something illicit - though there was nothing abnormal about having such an invitation, she knew they would have been sent out to nearly everyone in Tirion. A tall elf stood in the doorway, cloak thrown over one arm. "Russo. I thought you were attending the tournament?" Belatedly, she remembered the spear haft leaning against the wall next to the door, intended for this very brother a week from today, but luckily he didn't seem to notice.

"It ended early - Elveändil was injured during the wrestling match." Rúsekáno was twenty years older than her, as well as several inches taller, but they had the same golden hair and blue eyes, the hallmark of the Vanyar.

"How badly?" She wasn't truly concerned with her brother's friends at the moment - though the one in question was a polite, kind boy, one that seemed to show up often at their house with excuses to talk to her about trivial things such as the weather and the next scheduled spear throwing competition - but such conversation was about all she could manage right now. Besides, it wouldn't do to have him wonder why she was acting oddly.

"Nothing too major - broken arm. Should heal within the week, the healers say. They have to be careful the first few days, though - last time this happened, it healed crooked and they had to rebreak it to set it properly-" He stopped, scrutinizing her face, and she tried to school her expression into one of polite interest. "Is there something wrong, Þellillë?"

"Not at all." She lifted an eyebrow in what she hoped was surprise. "Why do you ask?"

"You seem... out of sorts. Is there aught troubling you?"

"Of course not!" She rose, gathering her skirts about her.

"If you say so." He caught sight of something behind her and nodded towards the invitation she had so hastily (and rather clumsily) hid. "Is that what I think it is?"

"I suppose it is." Unable to refuse without arousing suspicion, Indis handed it to him, smoothing out the wrinkles caused by its sojourn between the chair and the cushion. He looked it over with the air of one who already knew its contents, then handed it back to her.

"So they finally scheduled it, eh? Well, it's hardly as though it was a big secret that they wanted to have it soon."

"I suppose we must begin preparations? They will expect some sort of gift, surely."

Rúsekáno nodded, seemingly reassured by her reply. "Let's talk to Uncle Ingwë about that. He'd probably know more about what the High King likes and dislikes." He turned and swept from the room, not even looking back at his little sister. Indis followed a bit more slowly, pausing to glance at the invitation that lay on the chair, forgotten - the swirl of letters still visible from here, and even if she could not read them the words were shadows on the back of her eyelids still - _Finwë and Míriel. Míriel and Finwë._

* * *

Indis waited a few days before posing her question to Rúsekáno, turning it over and over in her mind, struggling to put her thoughts into words (they were so _clear_ in her mind, but so hard to articulate in any kind of concrete way). It was easy enough to get him alone - merely a task of cornering him as he returned from his daily activities and before he left with his friends on whatever mission they had that night. Both she and her brother were odd in that they were unmarried, and still living in the same household as their parents, though the reality was that the two of them kept to their (reasonably independent) side of the house and their parents kept to theirs.

She caught him in the kitchen, tearing a hunk from a loaf of brown bread he had baked that morning. "Russo?"

"Yes?"

"There's something I wanted to ask you. Do you have the time to stay for awhile?"

He turned, caught sight of her pale face, and nodded. "Of course, Þellillë. What troubles you?"

"What if..." She swallowed, aware that her question was more befitting of a young girl than someone like her, but if she did not get the words out _now, _no matter how awkwardly phrased they were, they would never come. "Hypothetically. What if you love someone, and they do not love you back?"

Rúsekáno blinked, glancing at her in surprise. She met his gaze challengingly, willing away the blush that threatened to rise in her cheeks. "Why do you worry about that, Þellillë?" he finally asked, eyebrows knitted together. "Surely one as beautiful as you has any number of suitors clamoring for your affection?"

"That isn't the issue," she replied, biting off her words, a surge of annoyance rising in her. "The number of suitors I may or may not have is irrelevant if the one I love will not - cannot - be among them!"

"Cannot?"

Now she looked away, breaking eye contact. "Russo... what if the one you love is already promised to another?"

There was a long, pregnant pause. "The Laws and Customs-"

"I _know_ the Laws and Customs." _Damn the Laws, damn the Valar - this isn't a sin, it _can't_ be._

"Then... then you know that it's impossible." He smiled at her, trying to comfort, and reached forward to tuck a stray strand of golden hair behind her ear. "It's best if you put such things from your mind, Þellillë. There are others no? And you have all the time in the world to choose or to not, as you wish."

She felt his eyes on her, knew that he expected some sort of positive response. It was a small matter to smile at him, to sit up straighter as though the mere words of her older brother had wiped all her troubles away. "Thank you, Russo. That is... a comfort." _You have not helped me at all. I do not know why I thought coming to you would help in the slightest_ - but it was because she had to talk to _someone_, had to put the thoughts into words even if it were only for her own sake.

"Good," he replied, taking her light smile at face value, as he always did. Unexpectedly, she felt a surge of contempt - he and Uncle Ingwë and all the others (the _men_) always fell from her laughing words and cheerful smile as though completely unaware of what flowed underneath, everything about her.

"I expect your friends are waiting for you," she said smoothly, reaching into the basket beside her and tossing him an apple. "Don't be rude and make them impatient. Go on!"

He caught the apple, tipping her a wink. "Don't forget about the wedding tomorrow."

_I'm not likely to,_ she thought, watching him leave.

* * *

At the mingling of the lights before the wedding, Indis was suddenly struck with a crippling bout of stomach cramps, attributed to the Telerin delicacies she had partaken of (perhaps to excess) at the feast preceding. This, of course, meant that she was forced into her bed for the foreseeable future, unable to move more than the three or four feet necessary to reach the chamber pot. It with great regret that she informed her brother that she could not bear rising from her bed, even to attend the wedding of the Age. She even managed to coax forth a few tears to add to the effect.

Her uncle visited her in her darkened chamber a few hours before the fading of Telperion, already in a festal robe made especially for the occasion. "How are you feeling, Indis?"

She rolled over tentatively, peering up at him through a gap in her covers. "I am... I-" She broke off, doubling over with what she hoped was a reasonable approximation of terrible pain. "I wish I could go," she gasped out weakly.

Ingwë placed the back of his hand against her forehead. "I do believe you are fevered. Do the healers expect you to recover soon?"

Lying under heavy blankets in a closed room tended to have the effect of heating one up whether one had a fever or not, though Indis wisely refrained from pointing this out. "Not soon enough for the wedding," she said, sounding sufficiently disappointed. Her uncle nodded and swept out, closing the door behind him with exaggerated care. She threw the blanket from her, wiping her sweaty forehead on her pillow, and listened to the rest of the household leave for the wedding.

She could not, however, escape the feast a few years later, one that celebrated the birth of an heir to the High King. Not only was she too well-known of a personage to be able to avoid two major events in a row without arousing suspicion, but a part of her also wanted to see the result of this union, the offspring of one she had once loved from afar.

_But no longer_, she told herself firmly, tugging on her blue satin slippers as she prepared to leave. _That was long ago, and foolish. There is no point in loving in despite of all the Laws and Customs, especially when that love is not reciprocated._ She could even tell herself that time had worked its magic on her, that even were she presented with an opportunity to seduce her love, she would turn away from it, cold and unaffected. Admittedly, she had seen neither Finwë nor his wife since their betrothal ceremony, had in fact consciously (and subconsciously) invented many excuses to escape minor festivities when she knew either would be in attendance - she was tired, she had to visit her friend in Alqualondë, she had to attend a tournament.

Still, surely she had outgrown the delusions of an earlier time by now.

The High King stood by his throne to receive the guests while his wife sat in it, holding in her slender arms a babe with a well-developed head of his father's smooth black hair. Indis waited in line along with the others, laughing at her brother's jokes, bestowing small, kind smiles on his friend Elveändil and wondering why she had never noticed the small scar that split his let eyebrow, or how much older it made him look. When it was her turn, she turned to the throne and paid her respects in a calm, even tone, eyes never wavering from the smooth marble floor.

"I welcome the birth of the Crown Prince," she murmured. "I hope his parents are doing well?"

"Well, why don't you look up and see?"

She raised her eyes at the sound of that voice, and all her lies fell away - _nothing_ had been forgotten, nothing had faded. Rúsekáno nudged her, and she realized that she was expected to say something, that she was standing there with her lips parted, a flush rising in her cheeks-

_Stop this foolishness!_

"It's very nice to see you, Indis," Finwë said, smiling down at her.

"And I you," she replied, now itching to be gone, to escape the eyes that pinned her where she stood as if they _knew_ (those eyes that weren't quite the grey she'd remembered when she'd allowed herself to, they were so _dark_, like nothing she'd ever seen before).

"I hope you are completely recovered?" Míriel's face was pale and drawn, and there were dark circles under her eyes, as though she had not slept for weeks. The child in her arms, by contrast, was sleeping peacefully, round cheeks flushed pink, eyelashes fluttering slightly. Indis could almost imagine that the babe - named Fëanáro, if her sources were correct - had sucked the life from his mother, taken it for his own and left her with nothing for herself. Which was ridiculous, of course. Birthgiving took something from a mother, yes, but no babe had ever _killed_ his mother simply by being born.

"I - of course." She supposed Míriel was referring to her bout of supposed food poisoning that had kept her from the wedding, but that had been so _long_ ago. "That was hardly anything to worry about." _You, though - you look as if you need several long nights of sleep, undisturbed._ She wondered if Finwë was bothering to give his wife those nights, or if he was trying for another child already.

Behind her, Rúsekáno said something about the baby, and Míriel laughed. Indis wondered if she was the only one to notice the strained note to her voice.

* * *

The bells that rang in Valmar seemed subdued, as though even the Valar mourned for Míriel Þerindë. And it was perfectly possible that they did.

_She has refused rebirth,_ they had said. _She will not return to us._

The High King had reportedly not slept for days, instead pacing his hall and gazing out windows with a dark-haired shadow tagging along behind him, a child's questions echoing in the suddenly too-quiet rooms - _what's wrong with Mother, why won't she wake up? - _and the King had no answer for him.

_They have laid her in the gardens of Lórien. She will not wake._

Indis found her lying in the shade of a cedar tree, dress arranged neatly about her, hands folded on her stomach. The attendant that had been hovering beside her withdrew at the sound of Indis' footstep on the soft earth, and she was left alone with someone who looked as though she could have been sleeping.

Míriel looked healthier than the last time Indis had seen her, and she wondered for how long that would last - how long the body could survive without the spirit, and where exactly that spirit was now.

"It was you, you know. All along," she told the body, kneeling beside her and gazing down at the fine features, the spread of silver hair. Whatever spark had lit that face and drawn Indis to it so irrevocably was gone now, leaving behind only a frail husk. She took one of Míriel's limp hands in hers, entwining her hand with the skilled weaver's fingers.

The wind sighed through the tree above them, throwing dapples of silver across Míriel's still face, and Indis remembered another tree, another time - a time when this face had been smiling at her, speaking to her, a time when she could have said the words she hadn't had until now, when it was too late.

"I think you knew. But even if you did, I don't think it would've made a difference. Because you loved Finwë, didn't you?" It wasn't really a question - anyone who had eyes to see with had known what Finwë and Míriel had felt for each other.

She paused, twining her fingers in the silver hair that was tangled with the grass she sat on. "But... who's to say that one person may not love more than once in their life?" This was said so quietly as to be nearly inaudible.

There was no answer from Míriel. Indis sighed and smoothed back silver hair from the face of her love, then pressed her lips to the still mouth below, a tear slipping from one eye and splashing the still cheek below.

"I wish you'd wake up so I could tell you," she whispered against Míriel's lips.

_Wherever you are... I hope you know._

She stood and left the garden without another glance.


End file.
